Submissions open for CYD Doctoral Fellowship Program

The CYD Fellowships are designed to significantly increase research activities around the security chain by funding talented early-stage researchers in Switzerland. They seek to address some of the most challenging research and translational issues in cyber-defence by bringing together university- based researchers and cyber-defence stakeholders in Switzerland.

CYD Doctoral Fellowships provide a salary and research and conference funds for four years (with a possible one-year extension), enabling CYD Doctoral fellows to complete a PhD thesis at the CYD Campus under the joint supervision of a professor at a higher education institution in Switzerland and a CYD Campus researcher.

Goals

• Key goals of this Talent Program for Cyber-Defence Research include:
  • providing enhanced cyber security and privacy solutions, thereby reducing the asymmetry between attackers and defenders in cyber-defence;
  • accelerating the development of cyber solutions while taking into consideration the characteristics and needs of the technology industry and the operational ecosystem;
  • nurturing the next generation of top researchers in the cyber domain;
  • increasing the competitiveness of the Swiss cyber-defence community by leveraging synergies between the partners involved and testing new solutions within the Swiss cyber- defence research ecosystem.

Focus Areas

• Special preference is given to projects that address one or several of the following fields:
  • Protection of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of cyber and cyber-physical systems
  • Information sharing, data fusion and crowdsourcing
  • Data science & AI methods for analysing cyber- and technology-relevant data
  • Security, privacy and digital trust technologies

Funding Information 

• A maximum amount of CHF 3’000.- per year can be granted for research costs (only for specific equipment needed for the project, not general IT material), and a maximum amount of CHF 5’000.- per year can be granted for conference costs. These costs can be granted during the fellowship upon submission of a request with a justification for the funding.

Eligible Costs

• Eligible costs include and are limited to:
  • Salary: The requested salary contribution is based on the salary scale associated with the applicant’s position in the host institution.
  • Social Security Contributions: Based on the SNSF standard practice, the equivalent of the statutory social security contributions payable by employers in accordance with AHVG/IVG/EOG, BVG, AVIG and UVG (Swiss federal acts on social security contributions) will be paid to the host institution as a lump sum to be calculated as a percentage of the gross salary.
  • Overheads: Institutional overhead rates are set at a fixed rate of 15% of overall project costs. This rate takes into account the fact that CYD Doctoral and Postdoctoral fellows benefit from the CYD Campus facilities and receive research and conference funds.

Eligible Projects 

• Applicants must demonstrate that their project:
  • can significantly influence the research fields of security and data science and/or have significant impact on Swiss cyber-defence;
  • will bring together, in a collaborative effort, researchers from the CYD Campus and from at least one higher education institution in Switzerland.

Eligibility Criteria

• Citizens of any nationality may apply for the CYD Doctoral fellowships.
• No age restrictions apply.
• Applicants must be enrolled in a doctoral program at a Swiss higher education institution and have the endorsement of a professor employed in this institution willing to supervise them when they submit their Stage 2 application.
• Applicants may seek the endorsement of a professor employed at a school of applied sciences, but they must provide written confirmation at Stage 2 that they are simultaneously enrolled in a doctoral program at a Swiss university.
• Applicants with a host professor who is already supervising a fellow may apply, but preference will be given to applications with host professors that are not actively supervising fellows at the time of the application.
• Applicants may apply at any time during their doctoral studies, but preference will be given to applications who have not started yet their PhD or who are at the beginning of their PhD. Applicants may request funding for less than four years if the requested funding period coincides with the completion of their PhD thesis.
• The fellowship should be carried out on a full- time basis (100%). Specific exceptions linked to personal reasons (maternity/parental leave, care of family members, etc.) could possibly be considered depending on individual circumstances.

For more information, visit EPFL.